Here’s where candidates for offices at stake in the March 18 primary election are appearing this week:

FEDERAL, STATE AND COUNTY

■ A meet the candidates forum, ...

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THE BALLOT BOX

Here’s where candidates for offices at stake in the March 18 primary election are appearing this week:

FEDERAL, STATE AND COUNTY

■ A meet the candidates forum, co-sponsored by Canton Area Chamber of Commerce government affairs committee and Fulton County Farm Bureau legislative committee, will be at 6:30 p.m., March 3 at the Donaldson Center in Wallace Park, 250 South Ave. D, Canton. Federal, state and county candidates are invited.

The Ballot Box is a weekly listing of election-related events. Deadline to submit information for Monday publication is by noon Thursday. Notices should include candidates attending and political offices sought, or referendums proposed, as well as time and place of the event. Email notices to Mickey Wieland at mwieland@pjstar.com or send faxes to 686-3296. To confirm arrivals, call 686-3246.

Whatever else anyone may say about Doug Truax throughout his campaign for U.S. Senate, no one can claim he shies away from tough races.

The first-time candidate is, after all, hoping to take on Sen. Dick Durbin in November and deny him a fourth term in the upper chamber. That’s challenge enough, given Durbin has never had trouble with his Senate races. In fact, we had to look up his 2008 opponent — Steve Sauerberg — because that contest was so forgettable.

A poll last fall suggested slight vulnerability for Durbin, however — putting him just a smidgen below the magic 50 percent support number incumbent candidates like to see — even if he does still have a healthy campaign war chest.

Truax, a suburban businessman, would like to take advantage of that potential polling weakness. He says Durbin has been absent from leading on a variety of issues, although it’s a challenge that needs some further proof when talking about a someone who has served as the No. 2 leader for Senate Democrats.

But Truax has a primary election fight before he can take on the Springfield Democrat. That’s perennial candidate Jim Oberweis, now serving as a state senator from Sugar Grove after having first lost two U.S. Senate primaries, one gubernatorial primary and special and general elections for Congress.

He insists that on the trail, voters “like the nonpolitician kinds of things” that they see in him as a newbie to campaigns. Oberweis has plenty of doubters from all his previous statewide exposure, after all. The knock on him is that he just can’t win — although he still holds a 52 percent to 15 percent lead over Truax in a recent Chicago Tribune poll on the race.

To that, Truax said in a recent conversation with your shorter columnist, “as Republicans, we’ve got to get to that place where we say, are we going to keep doing what we’ve always done?”

He’d say the party needs someone who can reach out to pull in younger voters and independents.

As far as policy, he knows what he’d like to introduce as his first bill: A requirement that “every federal agency rejustify every federal regulation every five years. And if they can’t rejustify it, then it goes away.”

The idea is to shrink the bureaucracy, then grow the economy, as unneeded regulation goes away. We asked, though, won’t the agencies that like having funding and staff find ways to justify having the funding and staff to enforce those regulations? In fact, wouldn’t they just spend more time — and more taxpayer money — trying to defend their existence?

Page 2 of 3 - We give him full credit for admitting he hadn’t looked at it quite through that lens, and for saying that it’s absolutely true that likely “there would be a big effort early to say let’s drag this stuff out … that nobody’s really looked at.” But as far as a wholesale cultural change in the federal government, it’s something he sees as worth pushing.

Voters on March 18 will help determine whether he’s going to be able to do so during a general election campaign. (C.K.)

Elephant in ROOM

There turned out to be enough room at ROOM, but not by much.

The Peoria City Council used the meeting area on the fourth floor of the building at 305 SW Water St. to conduct a policy session last week. The ROOM Peoria facility is a nice spot for such a gathering — relatively cozy and a change from the larger, more formal council chambers.

Capacity-wise, it’s also almost always more than adequate. Usually at policy sessions, the only ones in attendance aside from Mayor Jim Ardis and council members are a few city staffers, reporters and community members.

That certainly wasn’t true last week. Hundreds of people protesting against Peoria School District 150 leadership rallied in the building’s lobby before they trekked upstairs.

The crowd filled the long, narrow meeting space and overflowed into an adjacent room. It’s likely more people attended that council policy session than the total of the last 50.

Of course, it would have been nice if such an audience had been there for the topic of the session, which was design of buildings, parking, landscaping and related aesthetics. Instead, they wanted to make sure the council was aware of their dissatisfaction with District 150 Superintendent Grenita Lathan and others in her employ.

That’s all well and good, but the City Council is powerless to do anything about the district’s problems. Ardis made it clear District 150-related public input during council meetings is not going to be allowed routinely.

But if nothing else, the aural and visual impact of the show of force last week was evidence the protesters can be just as political as politicians. (N.V.)

Hard to say what’s next

Your swarthier columnist pinch-hit last week as moderator for a District 150 School Board candidates’ forum. Although it turned out to be a candidate forum.

That candidate was District 3 incumbent Laura Petelle. Her opponent, Sue Wolstenholm, was a last-minute cancellation, apparently as a result of her physician’s advice. A few days later, Wolstenholm announced she was withdrawing from the race, although her name still will appear on ballots for the election March 18.

Page 3 of 3 - Wolstenholm missed a chance to engage a sparse gathering in the stately Woodruff auditorium. Where late balladeer and Woodruff High School graduate Dan Fogelberg once likely stood, Petelle sat and answered questions for about a half-hour.

But in another bizarre turn in a bizarre period for District 150, the biggest question about this race probably won’t be answered until the election. That would be whether the current public unrest about the direction of the school district is intense enough to cost Petelle her seat — despite being unopposed. In reality, if not on the ballot. (N.V.)